Walking With a Clump of Turf on One’s Head: Gendered Perspectives on an Extinct Ritual

• In Event: The Gendered Voice in the Cultural Context of Subcarpathian Rus’/Transcarpathia

Abstract

During this presenter’s fieldwork in the village of Novoselytsia in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia in 2017–2020, a woman in her eighties related an unusual ritual aimed at defining land ownership. It entailed a walk with a chunk of turf on the head and a candle in hand to claim one’s desired land boundaries. Her version placed a man as the individual claiming the land and assessed his actions to be sinful. Later, this presenter collected from a man another version of the story, a fabulate, placing a woman as the performer of the ritual and adopting a very different view. The male informant claimed the woman was a witch and would get her comeuppance for attempting to cheat a man out of his land. Our presenter, witness to both these narratives, will investigate the gendered approaches of the two speakers to the ritual, focusing on themes of magic, sin, and retribution.

Author

• Elena E Boudovskaia, Georgetown U